We love 'em, and the latest, Pop!, does nothing to compromise our adoration. Comprising 10 drum kits built on multisamples pulled together from years of Toontrack recording sessions in various top-flight studios around the world, Pop! is actually a slightly misleading title for this eclectic library.

Rock, funk, electro, house, tribal and more are covered, with kicks (of which there are 10), snares (10), hats (five), toms (five sets) and cymbals (five sets) ranging from big and burly totight and funky, with some intriguing and wonderfully unusual options in between.

The kick drums are particularly noteworthy - they're among the best we've heard in an EZX. There's a fair bit of percussion included in the box, too - tambourines, shakers, cabasa, bells and so on - although we felt let down by the single handclap and fingersnap options.

As ever, kit elements can be freely combined, a decent library of MIDI performances is included (complete with Humanize option), and the built-in mixer makes balancing the sound of your kit - along with room ambience and gated reverb - quick and easy, feeding up to eight VST/AU outputs.

There's little control beyond level and pan in EZdrummer - you can't even repitch the drums, let alone tweak the reverb settings - butthen that's what EZdrummer's all about: simplicity and focus. If you want deeper editing of your EZXs, you should think about getting Superior Drummer 2, which enables you to combine pieces from different kits, tune drums, apply effects and more.

MusicRadar Rating

4.5 / 5 stars

Pros

Great sounds as usual; does far more than it says on the tin.

Cons

Single handclap and fingersnap options not up to the quality of the rest of the sounds.

Additional Requirements

OS Requirements

Apple Mac OS X 10.5 or later Microsoft Windows XP or later

Platform

PC, Mac

RAM Recommended (MB)

512

Required Hard Disk Space (GB)

1

Review Policy

All MusicRadar's reviews are by independent product specialists, who are not aligned to any gear manufacturer or retailer. Our experts also write for renowned magazines such as Guitarist, Total Guitar, Computer Music, Future Music and Rhythm. All are part of Future PLC, the biggest publisher of music making magazines in the world.